Plans to raze the two, two and three-story, buildings on the northwest corner of Mission and Ninth Streets are in the works. And as envisioned, a new 15-story hotel could rise up to 143 feet in height upon the Mid-Market site which is currently limited to 120 feet and for which a rezoning and design exemption will be requested.

As designed by Stanton Architecture, the new hotel would yield 162 rooms for tourists over a 50-car basement garage.

And while the development would result in the demolition of the 21 residential hotel rooms in the existing Ram’s Hotel atop the Allstar Café, the project team is planning to pay a fee to eliminate, rather than replace, the residential hotel rooms. We’ll keep you posted and plugged-in.

Should not be allowed to eliminate SRO space without replacing it. Plus the old building actually has great character among the blando new development in this area…doubt planning will let this slide. Also, incredibly boring design. Hotels are the thing we should be excelling at in this market!

The answer to that is obvious (self-interest); the more immediate question is why do people feel someone else has that right…probably for the reason that SF feels it’s entitled to suck up State and Federal money:
– Because it makes SF “a better place”;
– Because they can.

Most likely because of existing contract and property laws, which is the same reason so many people feel they have a right to have their property taxes capped as well. And now back to the actual topic at hand…

Thank you for this dig at Prop 13. It has destroyed California’s schools and desperately needs to be repealed, and replaced with a much more limited solution for homeowners who really face hardship paying the tax on their residence — for example, partial property tax deferral until sale in such cases. And now for real back to the actual topic at hand.

It is no secret that SS is strongly opposed to prop 13. However, it has wide support in the state as it protects homeowners from being taxed out of their homes. Homeownership is still a way for regular Joes to build a bit of security for retirement. If you want to repeal it you need a decent replacement – perhaps a homeowners exemption from taxes on the first 400,000 of home value? You may now return to your topic, but don’t leave digs like that without the opportunity to reply.

It will also be interesting to see what happens to long term home owners in California with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 which eliminated the IRS deduction for the interest on a HELOCs when used as cash out.

This IRS change could over the next 8 years put quite a bit of SFRs back on the market that wouldn’t have been put up for sale otherwise which in turn could bring in some real revenue for the state and local governments via getting these properties back to regular tax roll assessment values.

Of course Prop 13 didn’t “destroy California’s schools” – they have more money than ever (yes, after adjusting for inflation) – and while it may prevent people from being taxed out of their homes, it’s also certainly contributed to the meteoric rise in prices for them – since savings in taxes can go to higher mortgage payments.

The more tangible – if less visible – long-term effects have been a shift in power from the local level to the state, and a shift from stable revenue flows to erratic ones (like capital gains).

“it’s also certainly contributed to the meteoric rise in prices for them – since savings in taxes can go to higher mortgage payments.”

But if you buy at the higher price, prop 13 doesn’t help you – only over time if prices inflate more than 2% per year do you benefit.

It may keep some people from moving from high price area to lower priced ones – if they have a home with assessed base of 500K but market value of a million and they move to a less expensive location home costing 750K they will be paying 50% more in property taxes. So it could limit supply of resale homes in high priced areas like SF.

Notcom, come on. You can only get away with saying California’s schools have more money than ever after adjusting for inflation because subsequent ballot measures increased school funding by mandating that a certain percentage of the state budget be spent on education. If that hadn’t happened, the destruction of California schools would have been complete. As it was, a heck of a lot of students were deprived of an adequate education during the period from 1979 through 1989.

Dear ‘incensed renter’ you’ll have to forgive my ignorance – I was a product of California’s education system for (at least the first half) of the period you mention – but what did I say in error ?? To say something is true only because of something else isn’t to refute it: I didn’t say they have more money because of 13, only that they do… that they do because of later enactments isn’t really relevant: I’m not saying 13 was good – indeed (as I pointed out) it introduced fundamentally bad features into California’s finances – only that histrionics like “destroyed..schools” don’t seem to be supported by the record.

I hope it will look better than in the picture. It usually depends on the quality of materials used. While older buildings can be interesting design wise, many don’t meet current exiting and fire codes, so are unsafe. Upgrading them can be more expensive than building new. BTW, whoever painted this building this nasty color has done nothing for an argument to save it.

I walk by this corner a lot and this purple building is one of my favorites in the entire city. I’m for building up here but this proposal would be so much better if it maintained the 2-story purple section as much as possible (and yes the ground-floor retail too, definitely please do not make this corner a glassed-off sterile hotel lobby)

I really like the existing building, too! That said, I also think it would not be the end of the world to tear it down as long as something good replaced it. The current proposal does not seem to have had civic virtue as a design goal, however.

Stanton (or the next architect) can do better. No doubt this project will see numerous revisions before it gets moving, esp with the two big obstacles—historic preservation and affordable / SRO protections.

While this certainly feels like it should be an SRO, given the name and location, it doesn’t look like it is. It has a normal Yelp page, TripAdvisor page, and ability to book on Booking.com etc. It apparently is just a semi-run down hotel.

there is of course the SRO Demolition Ordinance, but I would expect lawsuits if any of those residential units are inhabited now. This seems to be fairly early in the planning stages, so I wouldn’t be suprised if things get changed down the road

Armchair architect all you want, but this should be built in some form. Forgot historical resources – this is an undersized, run down building in an area that needs foot traffic. Another ~160 tourists walking the area, security guards and lighting will help to clean up this area.

Build it!!! Not a huge fan of the proposed design and not sad to see the purple building go, but this motel and corner attracts criminals. Walk by it often and see the drug dealers hanging outside of motel. Happy to see them go. Build it!

This will have to be reviewed by Planning Department preservation staff before any entitlements are even considered. The corner building has never been formally surveyed and so the project sponsors will be required to submit a Historic Resource Evaluation Report. Based on a cursory look as compared with the historic photo, the building is fairly intact. I suspect this will be determined to be a historic resource.

I live a block away from this corner. I understand the need to keep *some* if not many historic buildings in a city (we take ourselves FARRRRRR more seriously in this manner than NYC or London just FYI) but this corner currently is a cess pool of drug dealing.

A new hotel would provide constant foot traffic, as well as more support for local Mid-Market restaurants, many of which are hanging by a thread if not closed. I’m 100% for it, although I do think there should be a plan put together to find housing for the current occupants.

As other commenters have noted, the rendering seems to show no retail replacing the All Star Cafe, and as such, no activation on the corner. Nothing tourist friendly about that. I personally like the All Star Cafe as a rare low-priced, casual option, but to call this an upgrade there has to at least be *some* replacement, IMO, even if it’s the upscale, hoity-toity type of place that would probably fill a new building.

Actually, there are several eateries within a block of this location: Cadillac Bar & Grill, Coffee Cultures, Cumaica Coffee, Subway, Street Taco, Paramo/The Perennial, and Big Belly Sandwiches. Tourists will likely head up to Market St, where they will find more restaurants: Hazel’s, Kaya, Kagawa-Ya, Little Griddle, Ananda Fuara, Sam’s, and the food court inside The Market. When Whole Foods opens in the Trinity Building at Market & 8th (in 2020), more retail and restaurants will likely be added in the vacant storefronts. So there doesn’t really need to be a replacement for All Star Cafe. The main people who eat here are the 9th St. drug dealers target the SROs and their customers. I’m happy to see that element of the neighborhood go away, as a result of this new hotel construction.

I’m not in favor of saving the existing building, and the proposed design is not bad, but I have to ask what happens when we have city of these bland modern boxes. This proposal could be in Chicago, Shanghai, Chennai, or Seville. Nothing about it says San Francisco to me.